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The Power of Networks
Isabella Mader
To whom will you pass on mission-critical information? To everyone? Highly unlikely. Nowadays, jobs, knowledge-sharing and purchase decisions are mainly determined by networks and contacts.
This is no secret. Now that we are constantly being inundated with information, our decisions are increasingly based on what we learn through trusted networks. The flood of information forces us to turn to people we trust when making important decisions. In this context, Andrew McAfee (Harvard)1 differentiates between “strong ties” und “weak ties”. According to McAfee, strong ties are those which are enriched by an emotional component: having fun together, grief, crises. Weak ties are formal and content-oriented; these are the ties that will break down first in a crisis. Functioning networks operate on the basis of trust – which only exists where ties are strong.
Networks & knowledge-sharing
Knowledge, which according to Gartner2 is the oil of the 21st century, is shared on the basis of trust. For the individual employee, knowledge is perceived as power (and as a means of protecting one’s job). For this reason, collaborative knowledge-sharing within an organisation only functions in an atmosphere of trust. Getting rid of the company coffee corner during an economic crisis so that the employees will “spend their time working” is therefore the worst thing one can do. According to Dave Snowden3, the ratio of formal to informal networks is 1:1000. Usually, formal knowledge is amply available, but it represents only a very small portion of relevant corporate knowledge. Today, if a company wants to obtain an advantage over the competition, this is rarely achievable through cost reduction alone (since the others can do the same thing), but rather through the management of know-how – which up to now has not really functioned in most companies. Knowledge is filed away in the minds of the employees, and if we want them to share it, then it is a matter of managing people – and that is a bit more difficult than managing assets or finances, since in the latter cases, no resistance is to be expected.
Networks & corporate communication
TIME Magazine declared its “Person of the Year” for 2006 to be “you”: the Internet users4. At that time, almost half a decade ago, individuals were already willing to share information and collaborate through Web 2.0 channels. Most organisations, on the other hand, find this difficult even today. The days of the communication monopoly are over; everyone talks to everyone else and there is nothing to prevent it. It’s completely natural: Whom will you ask for advice if you want to buy a new car? The manufacturer? Not likely. You’ll probably ask friends for their opinions. And that’s exactly what happens online. Appropriate participation in (trusted) social networks therefore has to become an accepted part of corporate communication.
1 McAfee, Andrew: The Business Impact of IT. Blog. [Online] http://andrewmcafee.org/blog/ [11.11.2010] McAfee, Andrew: Information & Technology, Internet, Social Media. Harvard Business Review, Blog. [Online] http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/mcafee [11.11.2010]
2 Sondergard, Peter (2010). Information Is The Oil Of The 21st Century. Opening Keynote ITXPO 8.11.2010, Gartner Research, Cannes.
3 Snowden, Dave (1999). “Liberating Knowledge” Introductory chapter to Liberating Knowledge CBI Business Guide, Caspian Publishing October pp. 9-19
4 Grossman, Lev (2006). “Time‘s Person of the Year: You.” Time Magazine (European Edition) 25 December 2006/1 January 2007. [Online]. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html [11.11.2010].
Isabella Mader is a management consultant and a lecturer on social media, knowledge and information management, e-learning and IT strategy at several universities. She is head of the Master of Science programme in International Information and Communication at Danube University Krems. In the course of her professional career, Isabella Mader has also worked in the field of methodology development at the United Nations and as a communications manager in the private sector.
